Nayarit Seated 'Mourner', San Sebastian Style, Protoclassic, 100 BC - AD 250

Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired prior to 1970

Inventoried by Hasso von Winning, March 28, 1970, no. 37

Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles, Companions of the Dead: Ceramic Tomb Sculpture from Ancient West Mexico, October 11 - November 27, 1983

Hasso von Winning, Shaft Tomb Figures of West Mexico, Los Angeles, 1974, p. 155, fig. 243 
Jacki Gallagher, Companions of the Dead: Ceramic Tomb Sculpture from Ancient West Mexico, Los Angeles, 1983, p. 112, fig. 142

Very good condition, appears intact, lovely patina . The mouth of the figure is visible from underneath.
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A classic example of the "mourner" type, this figure blends the exaggerated style of extended knees with a realistically rendered face hidden behind his folded arms. He is adorned with a beaded headband and multiple earrings, otherwise naked. It is suggested the "mourners" may represent individuals in a narcotic state from a peyote or hallucinogenic ritual; the ethnographic literature notes that the contemporary Huichol in a peyote trance assume this position (Kan, Meighan, and Nicholson, Proctor Stafford Collection, 1970, p. 30).

For examples of figures in the Proctor Stafford Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, see ibid., figs. 54-58.